Peter Frost's anthropology blog, with special reference to sexual selection and the evolution of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Obama: White America's bogeyman?

Total fertility by race, 1980-2010 (source). Is the
end of White America being hastened by the Obama presidency? Or is it actually
being postponed?

Both the right and the left are trumpeting the Obama
presidency as marking the end of White America. In a harshly worded column,
conservative Ann Coulter argues that Obama and the Democratic Party are
deliberately changing America’s demographics:

If the same country that voted in
1980 had voted in 2012, Romney would have won a bigger landslide than Reagan did.

Most Americans don’t realize
that, decades ago, the Democrats instituted a long-term plan to gradually turn
the United States into a Third World nation. The country would become poorer
and less free, but Democrats would have an unbeatable majority!

Under Teddy Kennedy’s 1965
immigration act, our immigration policy changed from one that replicated the
existing ethnic population to one that strictly favored unskilled immigrants
from the Third World. Since 1968, 85 percent of legal immigrants have come from
what is euphemistically called “developing countries.” (Coulter, 2012)

Clearly, the 1965 immigration act was key to this
demographic revolution. Just as key, however, were successive legislative
changes, and increasingly lax enforcement, that progressively raised the levels
of both legal and illegal immigration. Also key were differences in fertility
rates. Non-White fertility stayed high long after White fertility had fallen
during the 1960s and 1970s.

This demographic revolution, however, had the
backing of both parties. Yes, the 1965 immigration act was ratified by a
Democrat president, but it won the votes of most Republican lawmakers.
Supporters included then congressman Gerald Ford (R) and then congressman
Robert Dole (R). In fact, there was more opposition from Democrat lawmakers:

The House of Representatives
voted 326 to 70 (82.5%) in favor of the act, while the Senate passed the bill
by a vote of 76 to 18. In the senate, 52 Democrats voted yes, 14 no, and 1
abstained. Of the Republicans 24 voted yes, 3 voted no, and 1 abstained.
(Wikipedia, 2012a)

After 1965, there came successive moves to increase
the overall intake, and these moves were likewise Republican-backed. In fact,
they were signed into law by Republican presidents. In 1986, Reagan proclaimed
an amnesty that not only provided about three million illegal immigrants with
citizenship but also set off a baby boom:

Between 1987 and 1991, total
fertility rates for foreign-born Hispanics increased from 3.2 to 4.4. This dramatic
rise was the primary force behind the overall increase in the state’s total
fertility rate during this period. Were it not for the large increase in
fertility among Hispanic immigrants, fertility rates in California would have
increased very little between 1987 and 1991. (Hill, 2002, pp. 27-28)

Bush Sr. signed into law the Immigration Act of
1990, which raised the annual legal intake of immigrants from 500,000 to
700,000 (Wikipedia, 2012c). And like his son, he declined to enforce sanctions
against employers of illegal immigrants. By the time of Bush Jr., total
immigration, both legal and illegal, was running at over one and a half million
a year (Camarota, 2007). Far from ending illegal immigration, Reagan’s amnesty
had set off a new wave of “undocumented workers” from south of the border. By
2007, the U.S. was home to an estimated 12.5 million illegal immigrants—more
than four times the number that Reagan had amnestied (Wikipedia, 2012d)

Throughout this period, fertility rates continued to
be much higher among America’s non-white minorities than in the majority White
population. For whatever reason, Blacks and Hispanics were not participating in
the economic and cultural changes that had reduced White fertility.

The other Obama
revolution

The collapse of the Bush Boom led not only to the
election of Barack Obama in 2008 but also to a sharp downturn in illegal
immigration. Net illegal immigration may now be negative (Passel et al., 2012).
Total immigration has fallen to levels unseen since the 1980s.

Non-White fertility has likewise fallen. Hispanic
fertility in particular fell from a high of 2.86 children per woman in 2006 to
2.35 in 2010. The same period saw fertility declines in other population
groups, with White Americans showing the smallest decline (Martin et al., 2012,
see above chart). Preliminary data indicate that this convergence is
continuing. In 2011, Hispanic fertility fell to the replacement level of 2.2:

[Fertility rates were] down 6
percent for Hispanic women and 2 percent for non-Hispanic black, whereas the
rate for non-Hispanic white women was essentially unchanged. The GFR for AIAN
[American Indian and Alaskan native] women was down 2 percent in 2011, whereas
the rate for API [Asian and Pacific Islander] women rose 1 percent. The 2011
rates for non-Hispanic black and Hispanic women in 2011 were the lowest ever
reported for the United States. (Hamilton et al., 2012)

If current trends continue, all of the major
population groups will have fallen to about the same fertility rate by the time
Obama leaves office. White Americans may even hold first place, their fertility
being buoyed up by groups like the Mormons, the Amish, and the Hassidic Jews.
Such a situation will be unprecedented in U.S. history.

One might object that these trends reflect the
current hard times. True, but good times aren’t coming back any day soon.
American economic growth will be sluggish for at least the next decade and any
attempt to do better will abort spectacularly, like the end of the Bush Boom.
Because the U.S. is now a mature economy, it can no longer grow at the rates we
once saw during the postwar era and now see in many developing countries.

In addition, the decline in non-White fertility
doesn’t seem to reflect only economic factors. Black American fertility was
already falling during the 1990s and 2000s when economic conditions were much
better, aside from a rise when Bush Jr. was pushing to expand minority home
ownership. The same cultural factors that previously affected White fertility
are now affecting all Americans, specifically a growing desire by women to
marry later and limit their number of children.

What if a
Republican had been in office?

Is this demographic reversal Obama’s doing? Would it
have happened anyway? We can best answer these questions by asking what a
Republican president would have done, like McCain in 2008 or Romney in 2012.

First, the level of legal immigration would have
been raised—that was in Romney’s platform. Second, there would have been some
sort of amnesty, not the same as Obama’s proposal but very similar number-wise.
Some 12 million illegal immigrants would have become eligible for an “earned
path to citizenship” and any children born on American soil would have
automatically gained U.S. citizenship.

Third, there would have been efforts to spur another
round of high economic growth through easy credit and deregulation, like the
Bush Boom of the past decade.Such a
boom would have done little to raise the average worker’s wage, while doing a
lot to spur another influx of low-wage labor for work in construction,
agriculture, and services … to mow the lawns of the rich and to build them ever
more monster homes.

Finally, a Republican president would have sought to
limit access to abortion, perhaps even seeking to overturn Roe vs Wade. There
would almost certainly have been a move to cut off Medicaid funding for
abortion and birth control.

Conclusion

Regardless of what happens, White Americans are
headed for minority status, but that process now promises to be longer and more
drawn out than previously thought … thanks to the Obama presidency. Is this a
case of his party naively acting against its own interests? Not really. Most
Democrats aren’t “anti-White.” That’s a trope that certain dog-whistling
Republicans are pushing. Most Democrats just want to see all Americans get the
same deal—the same standard of living, the same quality of life, and the same
freedom, including reproductive freedom.

Is that a naïve goal? Perhaps. But is it more naïve
than the Republican goal of unlimited economic and demographic growth? If
pre-2009 trends had continued, the U.S. population would have soared to almost
half a billion by mid-century (Beck, 2010; Camarota, 2007).

Political choices aren’t always clear-cut. Yes,
Romney is light-skinned, but that’s no guarantee that he cares about the future
of White Americans. His interests coincide more with those of the corporate
donors who keep the Republican Party afloat.Yes, Obama is dark-skinned, but he may still be a better choice for
White folks worried about their future.To be sure, the Democratic Party is likewise influenced by corporate
donors both directly and indirectly (via NPOs that are nonetheless
corporate-funded), but it also has internal factions, like the union movement,
that oppose the globalist project of outsourcing to low-wage countries and
insourcing low-wage labor. Other factions, notably the environmentalists, are
critical of unlimited growth. Finally, the different ethnic factions within the
party don’t form a monolithic bloc; infighting will happen, and one faction or
another will make appeals for support from White Americans.

Clearly, both parties leave much to be desired. In
politics, however, one sometimes has to choose between the terrible and the
less terrible. As White Americans descend to minority status, they will have to
learn to live by their wits.

References

Anon. (2012). The USA’s Total Fertility Rates by
Race, 1980 to 2010, Hail to you,
October 7

In it, he argued that all ethnicities around the world, including Arabs and Hispanics, are facing a "gray tsunami":

"Iran now has a similar birth rate to New England... The speed of the change is breathtaking. A woman in Oman today has 5.6 fewer babies than a woman in Oman 30 years ago. Morocco, Syria and Saudi Arabia have seen fertility-rate declines of nearly 60 percent, and in Iran it’s more than 70 percent...

[In India], fertility rates in the southern parts of the country, where people are richer and better educated, are already below replacement levels..."

And Foreign Policy Magazine argues that the diminished immigration to America is explained by the ever-decreasing fertility among Hispanics, rather than by any economic recession in the US:

"Birth rates are falling dramatically across Latin America, especially in Mexico, suggesting a tidal shift in migration patterns. Consider what happened with Puerto Rico, where birth rates have also plunged: Immigration to the mainland United States has all but stopped despite an open border and the lure of a considerably higher standard of living on the continent. In the not-so-distant future, the United States may well find itself competing for immigrants rather than building walls to keep them out."

I take David Brooks' view that the whole world is experiencing a fertility implosion, which will be the biggest story of the 21st century (the current hype about overpopulation will die down quickly as the new global reality sets in).

"I take David Brooks' view that the whole world is experiencing a fertility implosion, which will be the biggest story of the 21st century (the current hype about overpopulation will die down quickly as the new global reality sets in)."

The places that are the most overpopulated are the ones that have extremely high fertility and no signs of slowing down. Eventually the West will feel that we need to take in a billion African immigrants to get them out of extreme poverty and to replace our aging workforce.

I'm skeptical of the argument that immigration has dried up from Mexico permanently because of demographic shifts. Look at their population pyramid and the number of births in their country per year. Mexico is a very young country, with almost as many births each year (2.6 million) as there are among whites in America, despite the fact that there are nearly twice as many American whites as Mexicans.

I too was flabbergasted by the decline. I suspect Amerindians get the worst of both worlds: (1) they are fully exposed to the anti-natalist tendencies of dominant American culture and (2) they have not developed a pro-natalist counterculture.

About 5-10% of White Americans seem to fall within a pro-natalist counterculture. Some of them belong to the groups I listed in my post, but most seem to be generic fundamentalist Christians. The difference is that they practice what they preach, e.g., homeschooling, refusal to watch TV, and generalized withdrawal from mass culture.

Davani,

Yes and no. We're seeing sharp fertility declines throughout most of the world, with the notable exceptions of sub-Saharan Africa and certain Muslim countries that have a strong fundamentalist orientation (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia).

These are BIG exceptions. Ignore them at your own risk.

Jeffery,

Yes, we've been there before. Time to relearn.

Beyond Anon,

Yes, it's difficult to predict the long-term future, but the short-term future is already with us. Certain trends will likely change. Latin American immigration will probably decline over time, but immigration from Africa and the Muslim world has much untapped potential.

Jayman,

I should be thanking you! Your posts have influenced my thinking on this and other questions.

Does it matter? since the US of A is a melting pot destined to be the cradle of a Future Standardized American, the respective fertility rates of the different 'founder' groups is an issue that can be relevant for the next 30 or 40 years, but no more.Because 'Mixity' is an irreversible process, for Whites at least, 'Mixity' wins over 'fertility rates'. The speed of that is more dependant of the socio-economy than demographic factors, IMO, which means that in America, 'races' are out and social classes are 'in'. For example the financial crisis and affirmative action policies should have an effect on where the declassed middle class white people put their kids. Predictibly, more Whites should put their kids in public schools, which 'encourage' the melting pot, to say the very least.But I am not even sure private schools prevent racial intermixing. All private schools do is to promote the inter-mixing of children of the same class, irrespective of their race: the rich with the rich and the poor with the poor. So, my guess is that the typical 'American' circa 2080-2100 will be divided in two classes:1) a standardized mixed-race 30% white, 20% latinos, 20% black, 10% asian/Indy, 10% amerindian, 10% or less jew, individual in the lower class,and 2) a 'whiter' mixed-race 50% white, 25% jew, 20% asian/indy, 5%black, individual in the upper class.

The U.S. is still far from being a melting pot. Only 10% of children born to White American women are fathered by men of other racial backgrounds.

Toddy Cat,

"Some" Democrats, yes, but "some" doesn't mean "most."

Anon,

The high rates of immigration, both legal and illegal, were due to the Bush Boom and the policies that favored a mass influx of low-wage labor. If Romney had been elected, we would have seen a reboot of the Bush Boom.

And that would have been End Game. The tipping point for the demise of White America would no longer have been in mid-century. It would have been in the late 2020s.

What could be the reasons of the different falling rate of births for the different groups?The 2008 crisis hit them all, but Whites, apparently, endured better than the rest.Do you have some figures about the fertility rates between 1920-1950? Do the effect on the fertility rate was the same or similar? I found some and, apparently, yes. TBR fell faster from higher levels for Blacks than for Whites and rebound faster from lower level for Whites than Blacks.

It appear Blacks are hit sooner and harder and recover later and less than Whites.

The prospect of continuous economic troubles in the future of the USoA make me think the trend of faster declining birthrates for Blacks and Hispanics will continue in the future, where Whites will stabilize and could rebound a little like in the '90s.

I note there is a bump on the graph of TFR for all groups (smaller for Whites) coincident with the housing bubble top and a sharp fall (smaller for the Whites) coincident with the house price top starting.

Do the increase of TFR was linked to family formations? Probably.This is marked for Blacks. The TFR fall before the bump (delayed births) to allow capital accumulation to buy the home. The home increase in price (people feel wealthier) and they start having children. House prices fall, jobs are lost, people feel poorer and stop having other children, New house formations are delayed.

One reason is that White Americans have a lower rate of illegitimacy than other groups, except Asians (who have about the same rate). Easier access to abortion and birth control thus tends to reduce fertility to a greater extent in these other groups.

Another reason is the existence of a high-fertility counterculture among White Americans. These are people who practice homeschooling and abstinence from mass culture. They are generally but not always Christian fundamentalists.

The housing bubble boosted fertility among Hispanics and Blacks. This was a more or less deliberate aim of the Bush administration in its drive to increase minority home ownership (the other aim was to help out its buddies in the real estate industry). The reasoning was that if people own their own homes they will be socially more responsible. There is, indeed, a causal link between the two, but it runs in the other direction. Socially responsible people are more likely to put money aside to buy a home.

Affirmative action would seem to be the opposite of living by one's wits. And rather than being a temporary palliative, affirmative action is being applied (permanently) to more and more non-white groups over time.

Any demographer who does not address the counterproductive consequences of permanent race-based affirmative action in hires, contracts, and admissions, is just whistling out his mass.

The U.S. is still far from being a melting pot. Only 10% of children born to White American women are fathered by men of other racial backgrounds.

But that's what whites are 'living towards,' if you follow my meaning, and they seem determined that nothing but nothing should deter them from that path. So it may be a while a way yet but it's virtually a foregone conclusion.

In California in 2008 22% of children born to non-hispanic white females were fathered by non-whites and one must expect this trend will continue. If 25% of children born to white mothers are fathered by non-whites then even if white TFR reaches an unlikely level of 2.5 it will still be the case that less than a replacement number of white children are born (ie 2.5 * .75 = 1.875).

Of course, there is little reason to think that mixing might stop at 25%. It could continue all the way to 50% or so, where it seems reasonable to think it may level off as mixing bumps up against dedicated white preservationists.

But one should also consider whether the devoutness of white preservation really stems from racial commitment/revulsion or whether its roots tend to be cultural. That is, are white preservationists not attracted to non-whites racially, or is it more the case that the general cultural alienness of non-whites removes them from consideration. If it's the latter, that alienness will diminish over time - think of mixed children 'raised white' - which means estimates of the number of 'racially-caused' white preservationists must be adjusted accordingly. The implication for the long run is that there is nothing preventing 100% of children born to white mothers being fathered by non-whites.

In short, Peter, the prospects are bleak. While one must be wary of spreading despair or a sense of hopelessness, but at the same time one must also inculcate some sense of urgency. Telling people "it's not that bad," in my view, only encourages a false sense of security and further apathy.

Welcome to my blog! For the most part, this page will be an extension of my website, with comments relating to my research. But it will also branch out into more general discussions of human evolution.